The present invention relates to a semiconductor device.
A method for detecting a deterioration of a device such as an integrated circuit is known. For instance, a method disclosed in Patent Document 1 includes periodically determining a maximum operating frequency of a digital system and generating a warning signal that indicates a decrease in the reliability of the digital system if at least one of the following cases is true: (i) the measured or estimated maximum operating frequency of the digital system is less than a warning threshold operating frequency for the digital system and the warning threshold operating frequency is equal to or more than a minimum operating frequency specified for the digital system by its manufacturer; and (ii) a rate of change obtained from a difference between measured maximum operating frequencies of the digital system exceeds a threshold of an allowable rate of change for the digital system.